


(Atypical) Love Story

by tiamatv



Series: Atypical [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Yep Still Team Switch Forever Over Here), Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Dating, Detective Dean Winchester, Enthusiastic Consent, Grumpy Castiel (Supernatural), Librarian Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Castiel (Supernatural), Scenting, Sweet Dean Winchester, Top/Bottom Versatile Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: “Are you… scenting me?” the man in an oversized beige trench coat asked, suspiciously, in a deep gravel voice that ran down Dean’s spine. "Why? I really don't smell like much."Dean’s mouth sagged open. “Dude,” he answered, honestly, “You smell amazing.”He’d never seen anyone look so shocked at a compliment before. “O-oh.”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Atypical [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169270
Comments: 102
Kudos: 866
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	(Atypical) Love Story

**Author's Note:**

> So... I swear I'm going to write something other than nontraditional A/B/O again at some point, but that point is not today. 
> 
> Please see the endnotes for trigger warnings. There is ABSOLUTELY ZERO DUBCON ANYWHERE, everything is 100% very enthusiastic consent, and they're both very delighted to be where they are, doing what they're doing. That said, they do talk about some emotionally tough topics. (I know. Using their words. It's strange.)
> 
> Thanks to [ms_josephine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_josephine/pseuds/ms_josephine) for reassurance and beta, and to [queenandthree](https://queenandthree.tumblr.com/) for the first draft readthrough and suggestions!

The top notes that Dean was getting were warm and organic and kind of dusty. He smelled like library stacks and feathers and maybe a spill of beeswax, musty and earthy.

Dean liked the fresh, bright smell of omegas—fruits or pumpkin pie or granulated sugar, mm- _mm_. Heck, he liked that a lot, he _definitely_ had a preference, but Dean’s alpha was a pretty chill thing most days: it didn’t mind the spicy, darker smell of other alphas, either. Well, if the goddamned rut wasn’t tying them all in knots.

This guy… Dean didn’t even know what it was. There wasn’t anything in-your-face about it: he smelled more like what Dean would have imagined a beta smelled like, if he was going to be honest. Except… no, that wasn’t right either. Was it? Dean had never met a beta, they were so rare, but they were supposed to have _neutral_ scents, reactionless ones, weren’t they?

And this guy’s scent was not neutral. Not even close. There was just that delicate lingering undertone of a darker sweetness that… _wow_. What _was_ that?

He smelled so damned _tantalizing_ that even knowing how rude it was, Dean opened his mouth and took another, deeper inhale.

“Are you… _scenting_ me?” the man in an oversized beige trench coat asked, suspiciously, in a deep gravel voice that ran down Dean’s spine as if it were a hand and Dean had fur. He squinted at Dean— _whoa,_ those eyes were really blue—but he didn’t tug his arm out from under Dean’s fingers.

Which he should have. Because Dean was being _completely_ _weird_.

“I—sorry, man,” Dean apologized, blinking, a little shocked at himself—what the Hell, Winchester. He let the tense arm under his fingers go. It was totally okay to lunge out and grab someone to yank them out of incoming traffic. Dean would have considered himself one Hell of a crappy public servant if he hadn’t done that. It was not even remotely okay to keep holding on to someone to get a _sniff_ of them. “Sorry, I—”

But the man hugged his book to his chest with his other arm and stared up at Dean from the tiny few inches of height Dean had on him—maybe he really _was_ a beta, because if he was an omega, he was nearly the tallest one that Dean had ever seen, female _or_ male. Hell, he mostly looked like an _alpha._ His hair looked like it had known a few too many fingers; he had dark shadows under his eyes, and a dimple in the middle of his chin. Underneath the too-big trench coat, Dean thought his shoulders were broader than they’d looked at first glance.

Feathers-And-Candles didn’t walk away. He didn’t take the crosswalk to get away from the weirdo who’d just tried to smell him. He just… stared, but there wasn’t challenge in it, and there wasn’t even wariness.

Dean twitched down the weird desire to preen, lift his chin and run a hand through his hair, and ask if he liked what he saw.

Yeah, no, he was definitely not going to do that. Sometimes Dean’s mating instincts were right on point, and sometimes they were just _assholes._

“Why?” the man in front of him finally asked, bluntly, in a low dark rasp of a voice.

Dean blinked—though it was as much at the ripple of that voice running through him as anything else. “Why what?”

Why was Dean being a creep? Yeah, Dean didn’t actually have an answer to that. Especially since he _still_ wanted to dip his head, press it to just underneath and behind the ear, that run of hairline where everyone’s scent got stronger, maybe nuzzle in just a—

Okay, what the _fuck_ , enough of that. Pulling someone out of the path of a car running a red did _not_ give anyone skin or sniff privileges!

“Why were you scenting me?” the not-so-little bookworm asked, suspiciously. “I really don’t smell like much.”

Dean’s mouth sagged open.

“Dude,” he answered, honestly, “You smell _amazing_.”

He’d never seen anyone look so shocked at a compliment before. “O-oh.”

And that was how he met Castiel Novak.

*_*_*_*

Dean took him to a cheesy drive-in movie and dinner for their first date, and it was pretty good.

(“Oh. I enjoyed this book very much,” Castiel told him, seriously. Huh, Dean hadn’t even known The Princess Bride was a book.)

Castiel took him to a comedy reading at a local small bookstore for their second, and it was pretty _great_.

(Dean really wasn’t sure about this idea. He had nothing against books, but he didn’t find most of them all that _funny_. Despite that, he found himself laughing until he had to close his eyes just to breathe. When he turned a little, Cas was watching him rather than the reader, smiling. It was the first time Dean saw him smile.)

It hadn’t been just the matter of first impressions, or the big baggy trenchcoat, or the suspicious, unearthly glare. Castiel— _Cas,_ now—really looked and acted nothing like an omega, even though there was _still_ something about him and his scent that made Dean’s instincts pant. Shit, they hadn’t done that this stupidly since he’d popped his first knot.

Dean didn’t always listen to his instincts—his biology didn’t rule him and, hell, he’d been with other alphas before. But none of them had made Dean’s inner alpha squirm like _this_.

Cas was deliberate and quiet, but he wasn’t delicate, he wasn’t deferential, and he sure as hell wasn’t sweet-tempered. There was nothing of candy and of _compliance_ to him. In fact, the first time Dean grinned and called him ‘Cas,’ he squinted as if he thought he might _protest_ it before he hmphed a little. He raised his chin like he was planning to look down his long nose, then finally nodded, brief and regal: like a king accepting a new title.

Cas was standing in his entryway, and Dean’s alpha really _liked_ the look of him there—door closed behind him like he’d just come home. Dammit, Dean thought he got more gorgeous every time he looked at him—his dark hair thick and touchable and scruffable, the way he always seemed to have his lips pursed ready for a kiss.

Castiel was so fucking pretty in some lights, with that tiny dimple in the middle of a delicately pointed chin, his big blue eyes, cut lines and high cheekbones. He was just _sinful_ in others—like now, when he licked his dry lips like he had no idea what that did to a person, when the light touched that dark little bit of scruff he always seemed to be wearing on his jawline, when he still didn’t look away even when Dean knew they’d been looking at each other too long.

Yeah, they probably should be going, they were gonna miss their reservations. Dean knew it. He still leaned a hip against the banister and asked, hopefully, “Hey, before we go… can I scent you?”

Totally polite, normal third-date question. Yeah?

Dean still didn’t _know_ what Cas was, and it wasn’t like he could ask him—what the hell kind of question was that? Cas was going to think Dean was nose-blind, or something. Dean was still leaning towards alpha, anyway. Besides, who was to say that an alpha couldn’t smell a little bit dusty, just a bit warm? Just because most of them smelled sharper and spicier than that didn’t mean they _had_ to. And if Dean wanted to get a closer whiff, hey, by a third date some people would have gotten _offended_ if he hadn’t asked.

Cas didn’t point out aloud that Dean hadn’t exactly _asked,_ the last time. Instead, he tipped his head to the side and squinted like Dean was suddenly out of focus. Jesus Christ in a tiny canoe, that was so unexpectedly fucking _cute_ that Dean wanted to giggle like a freakin’ schoolgirl.

Dean chuckled, straightened up away from the wall, and said, “Fuck, man, you’re _adorable_ ,” and just the visual of Cas’s eyes narrowing further—Cas clearly had no idea what to do about _that_ , either—made him laugh harder.

But then Cas raised both of his dark eyebrows in challenge, and both of his hands went to the top few buttons of his plain white button-down. Oh, yeah, that made all those giggles in Dean’s stomach flutter away _really_ fast. Because Cas also turned his chin to the side, baring his neck in an open invitation, and sure as heck Dean was not going to say no to _that._

Dean stepped in until their chests were just close enough—almost nose-to-nose, or they would have been, if Cas had been just that tiniest bit taller. From this close the bright frames of his eyes were just fucking _unreal_. If either of them had shimmied forward just a little bit more, their bellies would have touched. This was kind of closer than polite sniffing distance.

 _Perfect_.

Cas didn’t move. He didn’t look away. He didn’t break gaze until Dean lowered his head and took a long breath at the side of Cas’s neck, just under the dark cut of his hairline, and opening up his own throat as he did so.

Not Dean’s imagination. Not at all. That faintest undertone of something dark and buttery under that subtle powdery scent still made Dean want to just lick and lick and _lick_. He almost moaned aloud.

He felt the tentative brush of Cas’s nose against his own neck while he was still swallowing down his alpha’s whining; the careful tickle of it wasn’t making it any easier.

Then Cas murmured, “ _Mmm_ ,” and pressed closer. Dean felt those pouty lips rest against his skin, felt the soft damp exposure of that full, sinful mouth opening to get a deeper scent of him, and he _did_ moan aloud. He knew his own scent was pretty nice, everyone told him so, but he was pretty sure he’d never had _anyone_ try and suck it from his skin before—

“I quite like whiskey,” Cas told him, as if in casual conversation, and licked a long, slick stripe up Dean’s pulse.

Yeah, Dean was _done_.

So, yeah, they never made it out of Dean’s door for their third date.

“Can’t wait,” he panted, halfway up the stairs, half down on his knees as he pulled himself away from where he didn’t even know who was licking and biting into whose mouth anymore. He was half-dressed (when’d he taken off his shirt? He didn’t even remember) and Dean didn’t know that he’d ever been so hard. He could already feel his knot throbbing at the base of his cock, could feel the pull and pulse of it all the way into his pelvis. He was stumbling and achy and clumsy in a way he never was, instinct running bright and raw, and it all felt freaking _amazing._

“I don’t know what you’re waiting _for_ ,” Castiel told him, demanding and irritable, and dragged him the rest of the way up to the bedroom.

Cas’s scent was only a little stronger at his hairline, but it was dark and rich at his groin creases, like the stacks at an old college library. His cock was mouth-watering, big enough that Dean was pretty sure what his presentation was, now. Holy fuck he was so _perfect,_ flushed up and wet, head heavy and bobbing with just the slightest curve upwards at the shaft. For a dizzy second Dean was almost _offended_ that Cas wasn’t starting to pop a knot the way that Dean knew he was.

But there was still just that _scent,_ that sweeter one, one that wasn’t that quiet, studious topnote. Dean reached down between Cas’s legs as he mouthed playfully at his balls, reached _behind,_ and his fingers met bright, hot wetness over tight muscle. Every instinct Dean had just _wailed_.

Oh fuck, okay, _oh yeah_ , wow. He was wrong. Cas was definitely an omega.

When Dean lifted his head and licked the slick off his fingers, Cas’s eyes went wide like he’d never seen anyone do that before. Dean was pretty sure that was impossible, because oh, God, he smelled so _good_.

Dean knew how to do this right, he really did, and he did not doubt for a second just how aroused Cas was, not with the slow, continuous dribble of precome pooling on his belly before Dean flipped him. And God, when Cas _presented,_ it wasn’t just muscle lining the long curve of his spine. Black tattooed feathers edged with a thin rime of dark blue spilled down both shoulder blades, curved inwards to cross at the small of his back, wingtips trailing all the way down both buttocks to the backs of his thighs. Dean whispered “ _Fuck_ ,” and his entire body shook like he was having a religious experience.

But the first breach was still so tight. Cas still shuddered softly at the first gentle press of Dean’s fingers, his pucker fluttering delicately even under the glistening trickle of all his own slick, and Dean could tell that even with all the right hormones going strong it’d probably been awhile for him. Sonofabitch, he was so _quiet_. Dean rubbed his other palm over the deep V where feathers met, and the tension settled out of Cas’s spine, wings loosening and spreading, his dark head dipping to rest on his forearms.

No problem. No problem at all. Dean could do slow.

(No, he couldn’t.)

Dammit, yes, he _could_.

Cas arched under Dean and panted against his own arms, _so_ _quiet_ , just the first inch or two of Dean’s cock nudging in. Dean tried to hold, tried to _wait,_ he really did, but Cas shoved back against him anyway—with a wet tug Dean was _in_. Cas’s shoulders jerked back, and his breath left in a soft rough rasp.

Fuck. Dean wanted to make him _scream_.

“You want to knot?” Dean asked, shaky, while he still had the brain left to ask. Not everyone liked that outside of heat-sex, and Dean was just fine with not doing it. Normally, he really was. Sure, it felt fucking _fantastic_ , there was nothing like it, but being stuck _in_ someone for a good half hour, well. There was no quick escape from that.

Except right now, pushing halfway in and out of Castiel’s slick channel because he wasn’t sure he could take it any deeper right now without _taking_ , that wasn’t what was going through his head. Damn it, Dean wanted _in_ him, wanted the tie so much his canines ached with it, wanted to nuzzle and bite and hold just _joined_.

Dean just wasn’t the kind of alpha who _took_ like that without permission, though. His knot didn’t get to do the thinking for him.

But “Please, _yes_ ,” Castiel answered, glancing over his shoulder with his blue eyes gone black, and yeah, Dean _definitely_ wanted to make him scream.

*_*_*_*

“What are you _doing_?” Castiel asked—though he sounded more confused than irritated.

Dean buried his nose in the nape of Castiel’s neck and nosed up the tiny little curls of black hair that had formed, sweaty and messy. “Sniffin’,” he told him, happily. That sweet, earthy undertone wasn’t any _sweeter_ , now, but Dean’s imagination wasn’t playing games with him. It was definitely there—stronger with sex and sweat, delicious and frustrating.

Not caramel, not chocolate, not even the musk of maple syrup, but that was almost—

Castiel sighed. “Dean, you are very, very strange.”

But Cas reached back over his shoulder and put his fingers on Dean’s nape rather than curling his body away from the tie, as Dean had halfway expected he might. Dean’s breath slid out, slow, at the soothing scratch, the weight of an unexpectedly big hand where he was vulnerable. Sweat tacked between them. Dean thought about pulling up a blanket. He thought about a lot of things, then nothing. He closed his eyes and rested his chin on Cas’s shoulder instead.

Damn, but he was the perfect height to be tucked together like this with. Mm. He nudged his bent knees behind Cas’s, and Cas didn’t pull away. He shifted back into the cradle of Dean’s hips, and his abs were sticky and tight under Dean’s palm.

“Would you like me to read you something?” Castiel asked, finally, into the soft, sleepy silence between two bodies. “While we’re tied,” he added, over his shoulder, as if Dean might somehow not be aware his knot was inside him.

Dean opened one eye and frowned. “What?” he opened the other eye and peered over Castiel’s shoulder, down the line of his naked—delicious; that’d been a nice surprise—body, the rumpled sheets. “Where exactly are you hiding a book?”

“Nowhere,” Castiel agreed—just a little dryly. “I have an eidetic memory.”

Dean blinked, slowly. He’d been knotted together before lots of times. Some people napped, some people wanted to talk, some people wanted to _talk._ This, though, this was a first. “And you call _me_ strange?” he teased, running a hand down the bright, bony arch of Cas’s hip.

But Dean ended up staying in him long after his knot was down, nested against his back and drowsily listening to Castiel recite _Snow Crash_ from memory in a voice like dark chocolate sin.

“Almost as good as Vonnegut,” he murmured.

“Why would you _say_ such a thing?” Cas answered, with a huff.

*_*_*_*

Dean knew this was a terrible idea. He knew it. He knew this was going to be the end of this careful, strange, fragile amazing _them_. It couldn’t _not_ be.

But Dean was still an alpha, and as much as he liked to think that it didn’t control him, that it didn’t make him—sometimes it did. With the shadows of Alistair Jenkins’s smirk at the back of his mind when the jury pronounced him ‘Not Guilty,’ it _did_.

“Brother,” Benny told him, worriedly, as they pulled up in front of Cas’s apartment building. Dean couldn’t even look at his partner right now because Benny’s normally soothing scent of paprika and thyme and standing water was too strong, sharp and rank enough to throb in Dean’s sinuses. He knew he wasn’t safe to drive like this—he’d known that it was possible from the beginning, it was why he’d left the Impala at home. But being in this space with another alpha, another _dominant,_ was rattling through his brain in ratchets—higher, higher.

Dean’s jaw ached. “Not now, Benny.”

Seeing as how Benny was just as fucking dominant a sonofabitch as Dean was, he also didn’t listen for _shit._ “Brother, this ain’t—this is not a good idea, you should not go to your friend. You should go home? Sleep it off?”

If there had been alpha voice to that, Dean would have ripped his fellow detective’s throat out. Only the fact that Benny’s soft lilt made those statements questions kept Dean from tearing off his seat belt.

“Right here,” Dean bit out, and climbed out of Benny’s car.

Dean almost broke the key in the lock because he couldn’t quite see the keyhole for the red haze in his vision. He slammed through the door and into Castiel’s space, knocked over a small pile of library books that Cas had left absently on the little table where he normally put his keys. (The book he’d been hugging hadn’t been a prop. Cas really did love books—the actual dead tree kind, not just words. The offended look when Dean had mentioned the word ‘Kindle’ should have boiled water.)

“Dean?” The sound of Cas’s voice vibrated down Dean’s back as footsteps rounded the corner. “Is that you? It’s not Wednesday—"

Cas’s eyes widened, just slightly. He was still wearing his suit, though his tie was half-undone like he’d been pulling at it. He wore a suit when he went to work, even though literally no-one else at the library did, and Dean would bet it had nothing the fuck to do with his designation. He was library director, and Cas thought that showing that sort of respect and formality to the title was important. These kind of things mattered to Castiel Novak.

Dean knew what _he_ looked like. He knew his own tie was completely unknotted and his suit jacket was crumpled and balled up in one hand. He knew he was hot with a fury that was so beyond alpha it bordered on _demonic_. His scent was sharp enough with cayenne to sting even his own nose. He realized he probably looked terrifying.

Castiel put the book in his hands down—slowly. Even the soft flump of it hitting the countertop made Dean’s fists clench and unclench, nails scraping against the over-smooth fabric of his court slacks. The soft whispery noise of it was deafeningly loud in the silence. _Shh. Shh._

Dean panted. His mouth tasted sour, like a hangover. Why had he come here, fuck, why _had_ he? Had he wanted someone to be afraid of him because Alistair Jenkins wasn’t? This wasn’t right, this wasn’t—Dean was so scared of _himself_ right now that he was _shaking_.

But Cas didn’t step away, and he sure as hell didn’t bare his throat in submission.

Castiel stepped _forward_ , rather than backing away or showing skin the way any sane omega or alpha or beta or _anyone_ should. He didn’t stop until he’d muscled right into Dean’s personal space, even while Dean was still nearly panting with rage.

Dean’s instincts had _no idea_ what to do with that.

Cas looked up at him, eyes serious and slow. He didn’t try to lay a hand on Dean—Dean didn’t know what he would have done if he had—but his gaze was a contact all on its own. It wasn’t a caress, though—it wasn’t a conciliatory squeeze on his shoulder, it wasn’t a pat on his head, it wasn’t a grasp of his hand.

The steady look in his eyes was a palm resting on Dean’s nape, and it was so completely _not omega_ that Dean just stood, just stared, the anger in him hot and red and somehow far away.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel told him, quietly. “I’m here.”

The fury drained so fast in the face of that quiet calm that Dean crumpled to his knees—right there, right in the middle of Castiel’s kitchen, like his anger had been the only thing keeping him up and without it his legs didn’t know what to do with themselves.

He collapsed and found himself panting, with his face pressed against Cas’s thighs. The polyester under his cheek was plasticky as a Tupperware, but underneath he got just a trace of books and the warm rub of wax.

Dean was still shuddering when he felt the warmth and the dusty smell of Cas moving away—almost reached out a hand to keep him from going. But Cas was back just a second later, and lowering himself to his knees beside Dean, his body awkward in its suit and slacks. He was wearing black socks with tiny little guinea pigs on them.

Cas pressed a glass of water into Dean’s hand and carefully put his arm around him. It wasn’t a hug, because Castiel couldn’t do _anything_ the way anyone else did. It was just an awkward arm around his shoulders, almost brotherly, like they weren’t two people who fucked on the regular. Like Dean hadn’t barged into Cas’s apartment with his vision running red, using the key that Cas had just given him for emergencies.

Like Cas hadn’t talked down Dean’s alpha in _four words_ like he was a fucking dominant himself.

“Bad day in court?” Castiel asked, still sounding so completely unruffled, and Dean buried his face in Castiel’s neck, inhaled old feathers and new beeswax, and _laughed_.

Yeah, that was when he realized that he was probably in love with this guy.

*_*_*_*

Cas was awkward and pedantic and sometimes kind of hilarious. Cas was also _blunt_. He didn’t always mean to be, Dean thought, but sometimes he really _did_ , and with his earnest blue eyes and serene, curious expression, it was like a punch to the chest every time.

Bobby looked Cas up and down, unimpressed. He was putting out scent like new-forged knives, sharp enough that Dean should have realized just walking through the door that doing this today was a bad idea, and his uncle was standing tall enough that his actual height had long ceased to matter.

“What is wrong with you? You don’t smell like any damned kind of omega, boy,” Bobby proclaimed, suspicious. He didn’t raise a hand to shake Cas’s.

“ _Bobby,_ ” Sam hissed.

Shit. Dean had warned Cas that Bobby could be kind of protective and a little traditionalist. Yeah, Dean got that Cas was just about the last thing from fucking _traditional_ anything and Bobby didn’t mince words, but… okay, that was… unexpectedly bad. Okay. Plan B.

Which was… what, exactly? Get into an alpha pissing match that Dean probably couldn't win? Back them both out the door? Figure out how to rewind time?

Then Cas lifted his chin, raised one eyebrow, and answered, “I suppose that’s good, since I wouldn’t want you for an alpha anyway.”

Cool as anything, to one of the most dominant alphas that Dean even knew.

Bobby gaped.

Ellen gaped.

 _Sam_ gaped.

Jo snorted.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Castiel Novak,” Dean muttered, his hand flattened over his face.

Dean thought he probably should have been more surprised when Ellen started laughing, and hauled Castiel towards herself by the wrist for a hug.

Or, maybe, less.

(It might have helped that the terrified look that Cas gave him over Ellen’s shoulder was the cutest damned thing he’d ever seen.)

*_*_*_*

“Honey,” Dean finally realized, his chin popping up from where he’d dipped it to rest his face just over Cas’s cheekbone.

“ _No_. No, I don’t accept that as a pet name,” Castiel grumbled, trying to burrow down further from where he was flopped forward against Dean’s chest. He wriggled, and Dean forgot to breathe for a little while as that shifted them together.

Presentation-style was still the easiest if they were going to knot—they didn’t always—but Cas had wanted to try it on top this time. Dean didn’t have any complaints about that, not one single damned complaint, because Cas grinding down in small circles until Dean’s knot slid into him with a pop felt _not at all the same,_ for some reason, as Dean riding him forward. But it did mean that until his knot went down, Cas was probably going to have to stay on top of him. (That was Dean’s position—ha ha—and he was sticking with it.)

It also meant that whenever Cas so much as shifted to try to get his legs and thighs and back a little more comfortable, it made his ass clench and push in a kind of amazing way that was probably prolonging how long they _stayed_ tied.

Dean didn’t have a problem with that. They’d kind of already cleaned up as best they could, right? And having Cas lying on top of him, all soft and warm but still low-key grumpy because he hadn’t seen this coming, was pretty damned sweet. He chuckled, and stroked a hand up Cas’s spine, enjoying the rub of bone under his fingers surrounded by thick bands of muscle. His calluses caught on one of the thin ridges of scar under Cas’s tattoos. “Okay, _baby doll_.”

Castiel’s unamused stare was no less nuclear from six inches away than it was from across a room. “I’m going to bite you,” he promised, “and you can’t get away.”

“Promises, promises.” And Cas glaring at him coaxed a laugh out of Dean. He slid the hand he had resting on Cas’s backbone the rest of the way upwards and carefully pressed his fingertips to the back of his nape, watching Cas’s eyelashes flutter gently. The stern set of his lips relaxed as Dean continued stroking, up and down, the way he liked to be petted himself. Cas dipped his head back downwards, resting it against Dean’s shoulder again and giving Dean better access to the base of his skull.

Dean smiled and gently ran his nails through where Cas’s hair started to swirl. “I wasn’t talking names, though,” he murmured. “I meant the way you smell.” He tucked his nose in just over Cas’s ear and inhaled, happily, rasping their scruff together as he rubbed, chasing the scent up from the friction. It’d been driving him crazy for _months_. “ _That’s_ what that is. Honey. Under the, you know, the feathers and the candles.”

“Oh. My scent?” Cas muttered sleepily, moving his hips into where they were still tied. Dean felt the lazy flutter of eyelashes against his collarbone. “Oh. Yes. I could have told you that.”

Dean snorted, and bit him. Gently, though. “Don’t be smug, you smell goddamn delicious.”

“Have you talked to someone about how your desire to lick old paper and beeswax, Dean?” Cas had his face down, so Dean couldn’t see the smile, but he could feel the tug of it when Cas stretched upwards as far as he could reach and pressed his lips to Dean’s pulse. “I think that’s a condition.”

Dean snorted, but it might have come out more like a laugh.

“Asshole. How are you not already fucking mated?” he chuckled, running his thumb down the bare, pure, perfect span of Castiel’s neck where it curved into his shoulder.

“ _Hmph_ ,” answered Cas.

Dean reached over to the bedside and pushed ‘play’ on the cassette deck. The soft acapella of _Carry On Wayward Son_ slid into drums as Cas’s head snuck up against his neck as far as it could go. Dean was smiling up at the ceiling as Cas slept.

*_*_*_*

“So how’s it going with Cas?” Sam asked, and his voice was just entirely too casual. “You haven’t brought him by for Sunday lunch lately.”

“He takes Sunday shifts at the library so the volunteers don’t have to, you know that.” Dean pointed a fork at him and didn’t even try to stop chewing as he mumbled, “I see what you’re doing here and you can just shut your cakehole.”

His bitch of a big-ass little brother had, of course, waited until dessert to spring this on him.

“Why? I _like_ him,” Sam told him, earnestly.

“Yeah, so do I, though fortunately only one of our opinions matters in this case,” Dean grumbled, and messily shoveled in another forkful.

“Ellen really likes him. And even _Jo’s_ come around. You know she invited him out for drinks the other day?”

“Yeah,” Dean grunted, scraping the plate for the last little bit of crust and stuffing it into his mouth. “He told me.” He’d been on a late call, and getting _that_ text had almost made him want to find out if someone could switch shifts. Dean had gotten kind of a start when Cas had crawled into his bed later that night—he’d thought Cas would be heading back to his place after. Instead he’d used his key and wriggled under the covers soft and sleepy and half-drunk, smelling so strongly of mead that Dean wasn’t sure if he’d been drinking it or if that was just _him._ “You have a wonderful family, Dean,” he’d mumbled, and mouthed lazily at Dean’s shoulder until he fell asleep.

Dean might have lain there awake for a lot longer than he should, afterwards, with his nose full of feathers and books and the world’s most stupid smile on his face.

(Dean really had to get Cas tipsy more often.)

“Apparently he shoots really mean pool, too.” Sam was giving Dean a really satisfied look that Dean just didn’t understand. “I’m just saying.”

Dean snorted. “What, Sammy, that our freaky family has scared off pretty much every other omega either of us have ever brought around before?” Before he’d met Cas, he’d thought Jo was about the bossiest omega he’d ever met—she’d have had to be, to survive in a family like theirs. So Dean, before Cas and Jo ever met, had had the distracted thought that either the two of them would get along like a house on fire or neither Cas nor Jo would come out of this thing alive. Dean had to admit he was sort of pleased by the outcome—if still a little terrified. “Pretty sure that says more about _us_ than about Cas.”

Sam snorted, but he did actually start eating his… Dean didn’t know what that was, but he was pretty sure tofu didn’t belong anywhere in dessert. “I guess it is kind of tough,” Sam admitted. “All the dominant personalities in our family. _Lots_ of alpha voice.”

Yeah, there was that. Dean hadn’t realized just how bad it was until Bobby yelling “Down, boy!” to Sam—mostly jokingly—had made Sam’s girlfriend at the time drop to her knees. And it wasn’t like Madison had even been that _submissive_ an omega.

“Yeah, none of us know how to talk real pretty,” Dean admitted, cheerfully. Dean was better at keeping his alpha voice down than he’d been when he was younger, yeah, but for all that his alpha had come out of puberty pretty laid-back, it still slipped out now and again. At his job that wasn’t a bad thing, though: when both he and Benny yelled “ _Stop!_ ” at the same time, that hard rattle in the back of their throats, _most_ people stopped short, no matter what their presentation was. Him and Benny had snapped and snarled about it when they’d first joined the force together, but after this many years their inner alphas just kind of gave each other sideways nods and the occasional commiserative growl.

Sam inclined his head and gave Dean a look that was only a little judgmental. Well, Dean would guess he would, Sam had worked the hardest of any of them of making sure that he only commanded when he _meant_ to. “It’s hard on most omegas,” he observed.

Lisa… Lisa’d been pretty good with it, for the most part, but even she’d flinched whenever Ellen got mad, and… Dean couldn’t really blame her for not wanting that kind of example for Ben.

“Not Jess,” Dean pointed out, because his sister-in-law was the _shit_ , and Sam needed to be reminded of this regularly. “Pretty sure she could take you.”

Sam rolled his eyes. But he also didn’t deny it. “Yeah, Dean, and I’m _mated_ to her.”

“Yeah, okay, so what’re you saying?” Dean demanded, putting his shoulders back against the diner booth and pressing himself into it like he honestly thought it could get him away from this conversation. He was pretty sure he _could_ still alpha Sam down, but him even trying to would send a message that would, guaranteed, get back to _everyone_.

Sam smirked. “Do you really want me to say what I’m saying?” he drawled.

“Shut up, bitch,” Dean growled, not a hint of alpha command to be heard in it, and buried himself in a milkshake.

*_*_*_*

Dean’s rut this time around was _bad_. It tore and twisted. It was bad enough he called out from work for it for the first time in years—his back was aching and most of his joints were following suit, the knee he’d sprung more than once throbbing with every step. Yeah, he was so horny it hurt, and _yeah_ , his knot was up, but ‘so horny it hurt’ wasn’t just an expression: he was so sensitive that he couldn’t wear pants, could barely wear his _boxers_.

His aggression was so high this time around that even Sam, whose chai tea and leather scent _didn’t_ normally throw Dean into a loop when he was in a rut, stepped away growling when Dean flung himself against the door.

(Dean really didn’t know why he did that: it just made everything hurt _more_ , not less. Biology was really just _fucked_ sometimes.)

Jo’s scent and her voice weren’t as bad, when she came over to drop by supplies for him, but even _her_ presence had him panting angrily and pacing a strip of his own entryway, back and forth. “You are such a dumbass, Dean!” she exclaimed—through the door, though, because Jo wasn’t _stupid._ “Shouldn’t you call Cas?”

No. He wasn’t going to call Cas. He _wasn’t_. This would pass, it’d just be a few days. Dean was not going to call Cas over just so Dean could _scent_ him, because sure as fuck Dean didn’t trust himself to do anything else with him. Besides, if even Jo’s candy apple undertones made Dean angry and nauseated, who was to say that Cas’s general lack of sweetness wouldn’t make it even worse? Dean had never gone into rut fever, but he’d seen it in Sam, before he’d mated with Jess—there was a reason Bobby had a room for that sort of shit in the basement.

Dean told himself that over and over as he drank as much iced water as he could stand, topped it off with electrolyte drinks, and watched more Indiana Jones than was probably healthy. He was considering burgers or meatloaf or a steak—Jo had brought ground beef; it was cliché as fuck, but red meat _did_ help Dean, even though it never seemed to do much for Sam. But just the idea of standing in front of a hot, lit stove made a fresh spasm of pain go down his back.

He eyed the half-full bottle of whiskey. His lips curled at the temptation. Experience told him that alcohol made it worse. Frustration was telling him that it’d make it worse, but he wouldn’t have to _think_ about how bad it could get for a little while.

He should have known that he wouldn’t get away unscathed this time around, though, because when it came to his family, there was supportive as hell and then there was _interfering as fuck_. When his phone started ringing and he saw who it was, the flush of _ache_ and _want_ was vicious. Rut told him to put the caller on his elbows and knees. Temper told him to throw the phone through the window or crush it under his boot. Dean looked down at his bare feet—no boots—and hung up, instead. He didn’t trust himself not to growl, either.

He _did_ growl when he heard pounding at his front door.

“ _Go away_ ,” he yelled, when it didn’t stop.

“No.” Cas wasn’t yelling, but his deep voice carried through the door anyway. “I have a key.”

Yeah, so did Sam, but Sam had the common sense to _not use it_. Dean felt his alpha try to rise, teeth and knot, and shoved it down. _No_ , Cas wasn’t going to come into Dean’s territory without permission. He _had_ to know better than that.

But Cas’s deep voice, skirting the edge of exasperation even muffled through the door, also didn’t rile up his alpha the way Sam’s and Jo’s had, the way Benny’s on the phone had made Dean bite his lip until blood welled up. Dean swallowed down another gulp of metallic-tasting electrolyte drink and grimaced, but this time, he picked up his phone when it started ringing.

“Open the door, Dean,” Cas demanded, sounding—as usual—not one fucking bit submissive.

At least Cas actually had the sense to _not_ use his key—Dean hadn’t been as sure of that as he wanted to be—but it seemed like that was where Cas’s sense of self-preservation ended. “Cas, look, I’m _fine_ , okay?” Dean snapped. “Just… leave me alone.”

Cas huffed loudly at him. A palm thumped against the door. “Do you always spend your rut like this?” he demanded.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Dean muttered, and started _Temple of Doom_ up again.

“Well…” Cas began, but he finished with, “Don’t.”

“Bossy,” Dean grumbled.

“I have Tylenol. And burgers,” Cas answered, and Dean heard the rustling of a paper bag. His mouth filled with spit, sharp and hungry, and he didn’t even know if it was for food or for a lick of dark honey. “I will be as bossy as I want.”

“ _Cas_ ,” he warned.

“Let me in, please.”

Maybe it was the ‘please’ that did it. Dean didn’t know who or _what_ was in control when he wrenched open the front door, but Cas was silhouetted in sunshine—almost too bright for Dean’s tired eyes. He wasn’t wearing his work suit—just jeans, a plain red hoodie over an oddly formal light blue button-down, and it made him look even taller and thicker, even more like the alpha that he wasn’t. His hair was neatly combed, for once, and his face was freshly shaved, blue eyes flashing all the brighter without the distraction of his scruff. He had a takeout carry-bag in one hand and a reusable canvas one over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he told Dean, polite as ever. “Sam called me.” He studied him, up and down. His nose wrinkled, just slightly. “You seem miserable. And you stink.”

Okay, not always so polite.

“Fuck you,” Dean growled, the reverb in it rattling.

But Cas didn’t flinch at it. He didn’t smell like _afraid_ or _fight_ or _fuck_ , he just smelled, well… like _Cas_ , like someone who’d spent a year buried under books and had only just now remembered to come out, like a down blanket in the sun trickled with just that tiniest undertone of sweetness. The _relief_ of that staggered something that Dean hadn’t known he was holding onto tight, with both hands and ten fingers.

Cas also didn’t flinch when Dean reached out a hand—too fast—and ran a finger down the long bridge of his nose, followed it to the cut hinge of his jaw, pushed his fingers up into that unnaturally tame hair. The contact tingled down Dean’s wrist. Dean’s alpha beat its fists behind his eyes, but didn’t try to take his body from him. Jesus, he forgot how _gorgeous_ Cas was sometimes. “Do you _ever_ get scared?” he asked, gruffly.

Castiel cocked his head, and his eyebrows bunched in the middle of his forehead. “Of _you?_ ” He sounded honestly confused, cute with it the way he always was when he just didn’t _get it_. “Dean, why would I ever be afraid of you?”

Dean’s alpha was still deciding whether it wanted to be offended or pleased by that when Cas stepped in through the front door and pushed it closed behind him without turning around. (So he _did_ know better than to give his back to an alpha in rut.) He gestured to Dean with a hand, and, curious now, Dean went.

Cas leaned up—he didn’t have to tiptoe to reach Dean’s mouth, didn’t have to tense, and his mouth was sweet and soft and careful. He drank Dean’s aggression and his helpless, stupid frustration. He put his hand on Dean’s nape, his palm covering it entirely, fingers a sleek grip—and Dean’s alpha whined into his lips, tried to crawl into him.

 _Dean_ whined into his lips, tried to crawl into him.

“Sh- _shh_ ,” Cas murmured, and Dean rested his forehead against his, half-closed his eyes when he felt them stinging, stilling his hips when they tried to shove against Cas’s.

Fuck, he really hated being in rut.

“You should eat. And shower. Then would you like me to read to you?” Cas asked, breathing the words against his lips.

“…yeah,” Dean sighed. Cas’s arms tucked underneath his, and strong hands rubbed carefully up and down his spine. He curled into the aching pressure of it, pressed his face underneath the angle of Cas’s jaw. He nibbled for honey with his eyes closed; didn’t get it, but that was okay. “Yeah, that’d be really nice.”

(Cas read him, “ _he was also, perhaps, the first man of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.”_ He stayed the night. Dean took him on the bed, slow and sweet and careful in the dark, with his hands spread wide over the silhouettes of Cas’s tattooed wings. No, he did not give one single fuck what his rut was telling him to do.)

*_*_*_*

“I’m infertile,” Cas said, and Dean stopped moving with his sandwich halfway to his mouth.

He knew he’d been quiet for too long when Cas’s eyes dropped back to his plate—something they rarely did, because Cas used eye contact the way most other people used their words. “I understand,” he continued, in a low monotone even flatter than his normal gravel rumble, “if that means you do not want to continue as we are.”

It was Wednesday night dinner in Cas’s kitchen. Dean had cooked, this time (Cas was pretty good, and he made a mean pasta; Dean, however, liked to think he was still better, and he really, _really_ enjoyed the little gruff noises that Cas made over his food.) Dean’s mandatory detective tie was hanging over the back of the chair. He’d opened his collar pretty much the moment he’d walked through the door.

Dean’s brain was still white and shock-blank when his mouth blurted, “What do you mean, you’re—”

“I’m _quite_ confident you know what the term means, Dean,” Castiel answered, with cool, brittle certainty.

“ _Hey_!” Dean didn’t normally put alpha into his voice when he wasn’t on the job—and he didn’t think he _ever_ had with Cas. Well… not _never_ , exactly _._ Not since the day he’d yelled out to keep a guy in a trenchcoat with his nose buried in a book from walking right into the path of oncoming traffic. (Cas with his books was a _menace_.)

Cas had ignored him then—which really should have given Dean a clue about what kind of asshole Castiel Novak was, regardless of whatever his presentation was—and it wasn’t a good move on Dean’s part now. But Dean couldn’t _help_ it.

Now, though, Cas’s chin jerked up and his eyes glittered sapphire with anger.

“Sorry. _Sorry_. Hey,” Dean repeated, without the thrum of command, and wiped his hands before reaching across the table. Castiel’s hands were still and limp on the table when Dean put his hands on them, not curling fingers carefully up through Dean’s the way he normally did—like plants going for the light, Dean had once thought, with a smile. “What’s going on, Cas?”

“You asked me before,” Cas continued, his face still expressionless and distant in a way that made Dean itch, made him want to reach across the table and lick his neck and rub their scruff together—just so Cas’s eyes got back their blue and their curiosity, the amusement they so often had when Dean got him to chuckle. Something, anything so Cas didn’t look so _empty_ anymore. “Why I’m not mated.”

Dean blinked. He had, but it’d been more along the lines of ‘how the fuck am I so lucky,’ not… and that had been _months_ ago.

Had Cas really been thinking about that all this time?

“Dude, no, that _cannot_ be why,” Dean blurted out. This was the fucking twenty-first century!

“No. It isn’t, but I doubt it helps. I think the reasons would be obvious. I am… as I am.” Castiel gestured up and down himself. Dean really had no idea what that was supposed to mean, because anyone with half an eyeball could tell that Cas was _hot_. That’d still be true even with a completely stuffed up-nose, and Dean still _loved_ his subtle scent, the way it tickled at the very back of his senses rather than punching him in the face. Cas sighed, put-upon, at whatever expression Dean was giving him. “Dean, I am a thirty-four-year-old omega librarian with a strange scent.”

Dean was still kind of reeling about the infertility announcement, but he didn’t know where any of _that_ was coming from, either. “Dude, I like how you smell,” he insisted. “And why’s your job a problem? I’ve known about your thing for books since the beginning, it’s not like you ever hid it.” He’d had to ban books from their _bed_ after the third time he’d rolled onto a hardcover; those corners _poked_. “I had to pull you out from in front of a car because you wouldn’t stop _reading_.”

Cas stared at him the way he did when he thought Dean was being intentionally obtuse.

He followed this up by saying, “Dean, you’re being intentionally obtuse,” because Cas was just _Cas,_ and blunt as a rolling pin.

On any other day, Dean would have smiled at that, but the tension hanging over the kitchen table right now was dark and heavy and carrying claws. He was really glad Cas hadn’t decided to have this conversation at a restaurant. Dean wouldn’t have put it past him.

“Yeah? I’m a thirty-two-year-old alpha, and a homicide detective,” Dean answered, and he warily picked up a potato chip and ate it, not looking away from Castiel’s gaze—his appetite was gone, but he needed something to do with his hands. “You think that hasn’t been a dealbreaker? You’ve _been_ there when I have nightmares. You were there the last time I hit rut. When I hit _rage_.”

Castiel blinked, slowly, as if any of that being a problem hadn’t occurred to him.

Considering Cas, that was possible.

Dean hadn’t had a nightmare in awhile, but they happened. Cas never said anything after them, when Dean was so hot and itchy inside his skin he thought he might claw his way out of it. He didn’t mouth platitudes, and he sure as hell didn’t tell Dean he was okay—he just curled in, snuggly the way he so rarely was outside of sex. Sometimes he threw a thigh over Dean’s tense ones and pulled Dean’s arm around himself, Dean’s fingers bisecting the wings on his back. It never seemed to matter to him if Dean was capable of holding him back in those moments, and sometimes Dean didn’t—sometimes he couldn’t.

But Cas stayed anyway, breathing against Dean’s chest, and somehow, realizing that meant that Dean _could_ reach out and press his fingers into those wings, sometimes. It meant he could blow away the nightmare, watch it pool in the air and dissipate with a stubbly cheek on his shoulder and the soft rub of coarse leg hair against his own, Cas’s thigh heavy and solid.

Cas had also been there, _right there,_ the first time Dean had blown hot. Then the second time, Dean had been too late on the draw, the sound of the shot ringing in his ears before both he and Benny even got there. Dean knew he was a scary sonofabitch in rage. He still didn’t know how or _why_ Castiel hadn’t run off screaming the first time. He didn’t know what had possessed Cas to reach out and trail a finger along his hairline the second time.

He’d ultimately kind of decided that Cas just didn’t know how to run.

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean sighed. “You’re sexy as hell, you’re funny. You’re _awesome_.” He shook his head. “Hell, you’re so smart you’ve got half the Library of Congress _memorized_.” Cas reading to him—from memory, and that was never going to be anything but fucking amazing—had turned into one of his favorite things about being tied. Next to maybe putting a pair of earbuds on them both and making sure Cas knew at _least_ as much about AC/DC as he did about Tolkien.

 _Yes,_ Dean realized it was all strange, and _no,_ he did not give a fuck. That was pretty much the story of his life when it came to being with Castiel Novak.

Cas was nerdy and fearless and solemn and _humbling_. He really fucking _was_ , and it was breaking Dean’s heart to see the crack of doubt under the certainty that Cas wore like he wore that ugly beige trench coat of his.

“None of those things is even remotely true, Dean,” Castiel told him, firmly. He added, as if it was the entire point, “Also, I hardly think being a walking audiobook qualifies anyone for being a good mate.”

_Says who?_

Dean didn’t say that, though.

“That’s not—I’m just saying—okay. Never mind. Coming back to that later. That’s not…” Dean rubbed his face. This conversation wasn’t going the way Dean had meant it to, not at _all_ , but since the very beginning Cas had knocked him so off-balance he still wasn’t sure which way was up. “Cas, about… the other thing.”

Cas was _Cas_ —he wouldn’t have said anything like that if it weren’t something he was totally sure about, so yeah, Dean’s mouth running off with him had been insensitive and stupid. And maybe this _was_ a conversation that there was no easing into, but dropping it like that into a quiet, comfortable moment in the middle of Wednesday night dinner had still thrown him.

Were they not okay? Was that where this was coming from? Fuck, Dean had thought they were _really hella_ okay.

“I’m quite certain about ‘the other thing,’ yes.” Cas inclined his chin. He almost made it through calmly, until his mouth tightened. “You must have noticed I don’t go into heat.”

“I… uh. No, actually.” Dean swallowed a startled tangle of feelings—relief, shame, the achy little twist of hurt he must have been doing a better job of keeping down than he’d thought, if Cas had never seen it, even with that infinite dusk gaze of his. “I just, y’know. I thought…”

 _‘It’s alright that he wants it to be private,_ ’ he’d told himself, over and over. He’d have put money on Cas’s heats running light and short. _‘It bet it’s only a day or two.’_ They didn’t spend every night together anyway. He never tried to sniff the air or Cas’s neck any closer than he normally did, didn’t try to find out if that honey undertone of Cas’s was deepening, going sweeter at any particular time of the month. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted to know when it was happening—just in case—but as the months passed and passed, he had his answer anyway, he’d thought.

In Dean’s experience, most omegas really preferred having an alpha around for their heats, even though almost no-one believed that an omega _needed_ one anymore. It wasn’t even about sex, for a lot of them. Most of the omegas Dean knew at the station didn’t even take the time off; there were so many alphas amongst the cops that that presence filled up whatever pheromone tank was emptying out quick during heat. Dean didn’t exactly envy them, but it seemed a lot better than going into rut.

Most omegas liked _sharing_ their heats with an alpha if they could, though—and that was what it was, a sharing, a togetherness. But it was messy and needy and disorderly, it was _vulnerable_ , and… and yeah, there was pretty much nothing in that description that fit cool, organized, controlled Castiel.

 _I just thought that wasn’t something you wanted to share with me_.

Maybe that was why they were having this talk now, and Dean swallowed.

Castiel was studying him now, though, eyes deep as the ocean, and the brittle cold slipped off his face, the corners of his eyes drooping. He said, softly, “Oh. _Dean_. No. No. That’s not…” His palms turned under Dean’s, and his fingers curled, making their little seedlings. His gaze dropped, and he studied their joined hands. “I’ve _never_ had a heat.”

Dean’s eyes widened. Oh, shit, no heats was about as definitive as it got when it came to knowing that an omega couldn’t have kids. “Oh,” he mused. “You weren’t joking.”

Yeah, Dean could have picked his words better, there, too. Castiel’s glare could have smoked barbecue. “I really do not think this is the kind of thing about which one ‘ _jokes_ ,’” he growled. But when he made as if to pull his fingers back, Dean held on.

“I know. I know, Cas.” Dean ran his thumb down the web of Castiel’s fingers. He didn’t even try to smile, but he shook his head. “It’s alright.” What did an alpha even say when the omega he’d been with for the better part of a year said something like that? ‘I’m sorry?’ He was, but he wasn’t. ‘It’s not a dealbreaker for me?’ It really wasn’t. But all of those sounded conciliatory, sounded kind of like _pity_ , and there wasn’t a world in which Dean _pitied_ Castiel. “That’s okay.”

Nothing had changed, he realized. Huh.

“Is it?” Castiel snapped. “My family’s attempt to induce me when I was sixteen says otherwise.”

Dean rocked back so hard in his chair that he almost toppled himself over, felt his alpha rise so hot for a second he tasted blood—holy shit, _holy fuck,_ he’d wondered why Cas never talked about his family, and that, right there, _that_ was why. He hadn’t thought—he _wouldn’t_ have thought—it was illegal now, to induce, to try to force someone into heat. It wouldn’t have been, when Cas had been young.

 _That_ was why otherwise buttoned-up Cas had wings tattooed from shoulders to the backs of his thighs; that was why there were shiny traceries of scar under them where they crossed, from where someone had tried to rewire his nerves.

“I’m an omega, Dean,” Cas continued, his voice deep and unflinching. “And I am _broken_.”

But with one corner of Cas’s mouth lifted in a snarl that would have been much more appropriate on a ticked-off alpha, he really didn’t look like he was _either_ an omega _or_ broken.

Dean’s lip curled up in his own snarl in answer, and he felt his nails dig in harder than he meant them to. “I _never_ want to hear you say that about yourself again!” he growled back, and if there wasn’t alpha command in Dean’s voice at that, it was a near thing, and only because with the look on Cas’s face he wasn’t sure Cas wouldn’t punch him for it. “And if _you’re_ broken for not being able to have babies, you might as well say _I’m_ broken for not being able to have them!”

The fury left Cas’s face slowly, leaving him squinting like he was trying to put together a Rubix's cube and couldn’t get that last single colored box to fit right. “Dean, that… logic doesn’t make sense to me _at all_ ,” he complained.

“ _Cas_.” Dean grimaced, but he brought their joined hands to his lips and nipped lightly on the side of Castiel’s thumb because he had to bite _something._ The salt on Cas’s skin, though—that helped, even if Dean couldn’t smell sweetness, right now—just old parchment, just a little scorched. “You’re not a goddamned baby factory any more than I am, and I’m not with you because I want to knock you up, you doofus! Jesus, if I ever acted like that kind of knothead, I’d _thank_ you for kicking me to the curb! You’ve gotta know that by now.”

Cas stared, hard lines across his forehead like he could force Dean to understand. “Dean, that’s not what I… I’m not…”

“Then what?” Dean demanded.

Castiel didn’t look away. His shallow Adam’s apple jumped, and his eyes were dark and drowning as the ocean. “You should… you should have the things that you want,” he said, low and soft.

Dean heard what Cas was saying. He heard it, and when he picked it over carefully, the answer didn’t change no matter which direction he was looking at it from. “I have what I want,” Dean told him, and curled his fingers through Castiel’s again, entwining them. His knuckles were white and pinched. He was holding on too hard, and he didn’t try not to.

“That’s not—you take care of _everyone_ ,” Cas insisted, and his deep, dark voice was worn ragged. “Your people, your partner. Your _family_. That’s what you _do_ , Dean, and—”

He did. Dean knew that about himself. It was what a good alpha did no matter what anyone else’s designation was, and Dean liked to think he _was_ a good alpha. “So how come you keep taking care of me, huh?” he asked, gently, pressing his thumb into the web between Cas’s fingers. Castiel blinked at him. “You gotta let me take care of _you_ , too, Cas.”

Dean didn’t say he didn’t want kids. That wasn’t the point here at all.

The kids-that-weren’t were all hypotheticals. Cas was _real_.

Maybe Cas got that that was what Dean was saying—because Cas just got things that other people couldn’t see. Maybe he didn’t, because he sometimes had no fucking clue at all about things that Dean thought that everyone knew. But his blue, blue eyes dipped again to the hands that Dean hadn’t let go. Dean traced a life-line where it curved down Cas’s palms—dry, as chapped as his lips.

Cas looked smaller than Dean was used to seeing him, shaky and maybe a little grey under the tanned skin. Just maybe. Dean got that. He got why Cas had done this at his own place, surrounded by his own scent, with just the lightest punctuation of Dean’s. He understood why Cas hadn’t taken off his suit jacket for dinner, even though Dean had settled in, slung off his tie and his jacket, gotten comfortable.

Doing the right thing was sometimes really fucking scary.

“Thanks for telling me,” Dean repeated, softly, and let his mouth curve up a little. Turned Cas’s hand over to nip gently at his knuckles. “But it really ain’t that easy to get rid of me.”

Hope was really fucking scary, too.

“I didn’t… I didn’t care, that much, you know. That I don’t go into heat. I haven’t cared in a long time.” Castiel’s eyes peeked shyly up at his through the thick, dark lashes that Dean loved to feel against his skin. A small smile trembled around his pouty lips and was gone. “But I would have wanted to share one with you, I think.”

“Okay,” Dean answered, helpless with love, and his fingers tightened with Cas’s. Then, again, “Okay.”

*_*_*_*

“Bobby, hey, uh… Cas an’ I, we’re moving in together.”

Bobby squinted up at him, then grunted and pulled his cap back down over his eyes, crossing his arms and shoving his legs out further to continue his nap. “Yeah? So? What took you so long, ya idjit?”

“You better start bringing him to Sundays!” Ellen hollered, from the kitchen.

*_*_*_*

“If you can have a garden,” Dean insisted, “I can have a California king bed.”

Castiel sighed. “That does not seem like a logical argument, Dean. Those are not exactly analogous.”

In the end, Cas got his hyacinths and Dean got his mattress. Cas rolled his eyes and called it ‘indulgent,’ but Dean didn’t exactly see _him_ not wanting to sleep on it. And sure as Hell Cas didn’t complain about the wide, wide expanse of memory foam when he was on his hands and knees. Or on his back with his knees over Dean’s shoulders, because _fuck_ how he was that flexible Dean didn’t even know.

(Cas grumbled and nipped Dean—hard—when Dean pointed all of that out, grinning. However, if Cas didn’t already know that Dean really liked it when Cas left those little marks on him, then they definitely were in trouble.)

“I want to try something,” Dean told him on the day the last box got unpacked. “Not today, but… y’know. Sometime.”

“Alright,” Cas murmured into his collarbone, already lazy and soft with kisses in a way that made Dean’s stomach flip happily. They’d been too tired and sore for sex—and Hell if that wasn’t a mood—but Dean was more than happy to pull the sheets up and nestle in with a freshly showered and clean Castiel. Right now, Cas smelled as much like Dean’s soap as himself. “What?”

Dean nosed into the hair just over his temple, nuzzled an ear just because it was there. “I want you inside me.”

Castiel blinked, his head tipping to the side. One curious eye, its vivid color impossible to catch in the half-light of _their_ bedroom, peered up at him, and Dean was willing to bet that even though he could only see half of that familiar pretty face, Cas was raising just one eyebrow. “You’re an alpha,” he pointed out.

Dean smirked at him, and waggled his eyebrows. “Uh-huh. Pretty aware of that, thanks.”

Cas rolled his eyes—probably both—and closed them again. “You don’t make lubrication.”

Lubrication. Cas’s vocabulary was sometimes such a turn-on, and sometimes just… _not._ Dean couldn’t help but grin. “Okay, but neither do you when you’re in a bad mood.”

This time, both of Castiel’s eyes flew open and his cheek came the rest of the way off Dean’s chest, his pointed chin digging hard into Dean’s pec. “ _Dean_ ,” he growled. Then he squeezed his eyes shut again. “You are ridiculous.”

Oh, right, like _that_ had ever dissuaded Dean Winchester. It looked like Dean wasn’t the only one who knew he could tease Cas from grouchy to bent over the kitchen countertop and making the tiles rumble with that deep voice of his in about sixty seconds flat.

“Just sayin’. We should try it. Pretty sure you’ll like it.” Dean let his grin widen, let a little coil of anticipation twist in his gut. His inner alpha scowled, but just a little. “Pretty sure I will, too.”

Castiel’s eyes cracked back open and those full, pouty lips pursed at him, skeptical. “’Pretty sure?’”

Dean would have smothered him with a pillow for the one-handed air quotes if it weren’t for the fact that Cas was on top of him in full octopus mode right now, and would almost definitely have leverage. Forget flexible, he was _strong_ for someone pretending to be a nerdy librarian. _(“Yes, Dean, I am very certain I am not a Mafia hit man in my spare time.”)_

Dean shrugged, half-casual. “I mean, I’ve never tried it before.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Cas whispered, his eyes coming open the rest of the way, and yeah, Dean wanted to make him look like that _all the time_. Cas’s eyes followed him down as Dean bit at his thighs, mouthed the base of that big, perfectly curved cock, nosed in for the dark, secret smell of honey in the curls around it.

So maybe they weren’t too tired for just a little sex tonight after all.

*_*_*_*

Dean did like it. Oh, fuck, he really, _really_ did.

“Yeah… yeah, _Cas,_ ” he moaned, and he let Cas hear how _good_ it felt in his voice. From an objective point of view it felt weird, achy and just so _much,_ just on the verge of pain even with all the artificial slick. But the stretching out part had been _awesome,_ the feeling of being filled up was so completely different from anything and everything, and there was already just so much about being with Castiel that was just _not objective_ , not in any way. He’d known he’d like Cas _in_ him, but he hadn’t actually known he’d really like the _feeling_ of it—

Dean knew that didn’t actually make any sense, and right now, he didn’t give a fuck.

“Oh, _oh_ ,” and there was that breathy little skitter Cas got in his deep voice when he was really, _really_ turned on. He wasn’t the only one, though, _fuck_. The head of his cock caught on Dean’s rim and Dean’s whole body jerked with the soft hitch of it.

“Just like—yeah, just…” Dean arched into the hands Cas had cupping his hips, the thumbs pressing hard into the muscles of his back as those big hands just _gripped_ at him. “Nice, right?”

“ _Very_.” Cas pulled almost all the way out, careful and slow, the way Dean knew he liked it himself, and the drag of it even with all the lube felt _huge_. Then he _was_ all the way out, Dean felt his rim grip at him helplessly as he slipped out—and, almost before Dean had time to process that he was empty again, Cas was pressing back in. Holy crap that made him feel even _bigger_. “ _Mmm_.”

Oh, that satisfied little purr almost broke Dean right there, almost as much as the sudden shock of empty- _fill_. “Next time… _oh fuck_ … yeah, just… _yeah,_ ” he gasped, as Cas nudged deeper in again, started moving in a careful-too-careful rocking rhythm, and Dean trembled. “Next time, we’re doing this, _nnnh_ , missionary. I wanna see your face.”

Dean always talked a lot during sex. He’d never had it go wrong yet. The first time he’d pinned Cas down, bent him over, and whispered into the nape of his neck just how much he wanted to lick the slick out of him, they almost hadn’t made it to the bed. The first time Cas had pushed him against a wall and Dean had grinned and told him in detail how much he wanted to see Cas’s pretty mouth on his knot, they _hadn’t_ made it to the bed.

This time, though. Cas stopped what he was doing, and Dean’s entire existence complained about that, because _why why why?_ But Cas draped his whole body against Dean’s back, heavy and hot, mouth resting between Dean’s shoulder blades, and Dean could feel him panting. “Oh, I would… yes, that would be…” and Cas trailed off in a whine.

“What happened to that vocab of yours, huh?” Dean teased, trying to rock back.

“Shush, unless you want me to finish immediately,” Cas muttered into his skin.

“I really don’t want that.”

“ _Shush_.”

Cas punctuating that with a fucking _delicious_ grind of his hips inwards really wasn’t doing anything to make Dean shush. In fact, he was pretty sure that just made him louder. The soft, percussive slap of Cas’s hips against his ass had nothing on the way Dean was groaning into the pillows, oh _fuck_. Cas hauling his hips a little higher, shoving into him just a little harder—that angle was deep and it was _everything_. Oh God, Dean was gonna have to try to do that the next time it was his turn—except this was good right now, he didn’t even want to think about next time, this was _so good_ —

“Touch yourself,” and Cas’s deep voice was thrumming with command, husky and dark as whiskey on fire. Even without it Dean’s hand had already been inching towards his own belly, and when he grabbed himself Dean was only a little shocked to find his knot was already almost all the way swollen and he was dripping a damned _puddle_ underneath himself, _fuck_.

He didn’t hold onto his knot, he didn’t dare. He slid his hand further down to cup around his wet, slick crown—Cas’s hips had started to lose rhythm behind him, and Dean thrust into his own palm and back into the thick cock spearing him. “Fuck, Cas, I’m gonna—"

“I, oh, _Dean,_ I—I wish I could knot you,” Cas moaned, shoving himself in to the hilt, and Dean came into his hand so hard his vision whited out.

*_*_*_*

When he woke up, Cas was gone from the bed—that wasn’t unusual, Cas normally got up to do his yoga and make the coffee on weekdays, though he normally stayed in a little later on weekends. Dean sighed and stretched out on his belly. He kinda would’ve wanted a wakeup cuddle—not that he would’ve ever called it that—and his ass did feel sort of strange, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. Altogether, he felt pretty awesome, and their room smelled just freaking _amazing_.

Dean couldn’t normally smell himself, but even _he_ could smell the sharp bite of his own leather and whiskey in the sheets, and more than that? _Fuck_ , the honey undertone to Cas’s familiar dusty scent was so deep and rich right now that Dean practically wanted to lick it from the air—

Dean felt his brows furrow before he opened his eyes and stuck his face into the pillow. Okay, that wasn’t where it was coming from.

They’d had a lot of sex in the time they’d been together. A _lot_ of it. On pretty much every flat surface around his house, and Castiel’s apartment, and now _their_ house.

The dark honey sweetness in Castiel’s scent had never, _ever_ been this strong before, though. Dean swayed as he lifted himself up and got shakily out of bed. Christ, he’d thought he was used to it by now, but his mouth was _watering_. Then again, normally he had to look for it, had to nose around for it and go searching, and he would never say that wasn’t _fun_ —

Dean’s mouth flopped open and stayed open as Cas reappeared at their bedroom door.

Okay, yeah, Cas got pretty sweaty and flushed in some of those stances or whatever they were called. And yeah, Dean knew he wasn’t allowed to watch Cas doing yoga anymore because he maybe got a little distracted at the sight of Castiel bent over and wearing those loose, sleeveless shirts that bared both his wings and his shoulder blades, more often than not speckled with a few of Dean’s love bites.

But for all of Dean’s “obnoxious tendencies to interrupt,” as far as he knew Cas didn’t do his yoga naked.

Or with a hard-on.

Okay.

“Oh,” Castiel blinked down at himself, one hand on the door frame, looking as confused as Dean had ever seen him. Dean wasn’t really sure why, though he was aware that his brain wasn’t running on a hundred right this second—Cas had his other hand pressed low to his pelvis, fingers framing his cock in its neatly trimmed dark triangle of hair, and he really was all the way hard. And… oh, fuck. Hard and _dripping_. Dean wanted to nibble him _all over._ “This is… very strange.”

Strange? Nothing was strange. Everything was exceptionally fucking perfect, and if Cas didn’t get over here right this second—

Cas was sweating, his hair dark with it and completely in ragged electrified spikes, tiny jewel droplets pooled in the deep hollow of his collarbones. When he bit his lip and pressed his thighs together, and the slick on them made a raw, lush, absolutely filthy sound, Dean _got it_.

“Cas.” Dean blinked, and tried to close his mouth, and when he failed at that, just tried to stop drooling. “Wait. You’re…”

“Yes. I think so?” Castiel didn’t _look_ any more composed than any other omega Dean had seen mid-heat—flushed the prettiest pink color all the way down his chest, lips rosy, already puffy with how he’d been chewing on them, eyes gone dark—but he almost successfully sounded like it. He peered down at his cock like it was offending him. “I am not quite sure I like it.”

Dean licked his lips, then took two deep breaths. Yeah, knowing Cas didn’t have heats had helped the hurt he’d felt about the whole matter. Cas saying he’d share them with Dean if he could had helped even more. Of course, it was stupid as Hell that it had, ‘cause sharing heats was a _choice,_ but that hadn’t kept Dean from more than a few months of aching and wanting rolling in his gut. Yeah, even though he knew he _shouldn’t_ want it.

But Cas saying _if if if_ didn’t mean that he wanted it with Dean when it was actually _real._

Dean managed to wrestle down the way his inner alpha was all but _howling_ to crawl to him and swallow his cock, lick up the slick on those juicy, heavy thighs, _mine mine mine_. “I, uh, do you…” His fingers curled in the sheets, twisting, but he kept talking because Dean _did not think with his knot_. “Do you need me to leave?”

Cas, disheveled, flushed, fully erect, and with slick dripping in shimmering trails down the insides of his thighs, was probably the most delicious thing Dean had ever seen. He also had his chin up, his head tipped to the side, and a bemused expression on his face like he thought he was living with a certified idiot.

And, because it was Cas, he stated, very calmly, “No. I would like to be fucked now, please.”

Dean only managed to not come on himself because there was nothing touching him right now. 

“Oh, crap, I need to get condoms, don’t I,” Dean realized with a shaky gasp, when he was done shuddering and just _breathing._

“Yes. Please do.” Castiel squinted his displeasure when Dean didn’t move, and not even the fact that he was practically _gleaming_ with his first heat could make that look sexy.

Except it kind of did, and Dean might have, possibly, sat there on their bed staring for a little while longer, mouth open.

“ _Now_ , Dean!” and Dean went.

*_*_*_*

Cas liked his first heat. He liked it a _lot_.

So did Dean.

“We’re gonna need to buy stock in condoms, or something,” Dean muttered, six months later, flat on his back and panting. He’d been right about the duration of Cas’s heats—they didn’t last long. Just a couple of hours, mostly, sometimes a day. He didn’t have one every month, either. If he and Cas sort of had a suspicion about what seemed to trigger them at certain times, well, that was their business and no-one else’s.

Dean had been _totally wrong_ about the intensity of them. _Fuck_.

Cas raised an eyebrow at him, one arm thrown over his head, legs disarrayed, untidy in a way he very rarely was. Dean’s cock tried and failed to rise to compliment that look. “Are you complaining?” he asked, and in true Castiel fashion, he _wasn’t_ even being sarcastic this time.

Well. Probably.

Dean scooted closer and hauled Cas on top of him with a grunt. Cas’s tone was grumpy, but the way he sprawled over and plopped his face right into the crook of Dean’s neck, nestling his hair underneath Dean’s chin, was pure heat-snuggles.

“Nah.” Dean grinned at the thought of what Cas would do to him if he ever called them ‘heat-snuggles’ to his face, and happily inhaled honey. “I’m not that dumb.”

*_*_*_*

“If you ever change your mind—” Cas murmured.

Dean snorted, pressed their chests together, and licked the puffy, fresh bite he’d left just under Cas’s right ear—normally his favorite place to rest his lips when they were tied, and now his favorite place _ever._ “I won’t.

“But if you _do_ —” Castiel insisted.

“Shut up, Cas.”

Cas locked his strong legs around Dean’s calves, reached up, and grabbed him hard enough by the hair at the back of his head that Dean almost snarled.

“I love you very much, Dean,” he rumbled. “But if you _ever_ try to use that damnable alpha voice on me again, I—”

Dean thrust against the firm stretch behind Cas’s balls, his cock still slick with Cas’s own wet, still a little hard. Cas didn’t finish his sentence.

Dean grinned, and leaned his head back into the grip Cas still had on his hair, those bright, tingling points of strain. “You’ll?” he prompted.

Cas’s eyes narrowed, and he hmphed, leaned up towards Dean’s neck, and growled, “I won’t fuck you anymore.”

 _Well_ now.

The threat in that really didn’t mean that much, though, when Cas was saying it nuzzling possessively against the mating bite he’d just put on Dean’s left shoulder, and Dean _laughed_.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> TW: discussion of infertility. There is a mention of a (fictional!) surgical procedure being performed on Cas in his teens that has, since that time, been deemed illegal.
> 
> Cas's reading is from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
> 
> Yes, so, er, this was an odd one? I wrote it a few weeks ago, had a couple of lovely volunteers read it, poked it, sat on it for awhile, and... it's still odd. So I guess it's staying that way!
> 
> In my head, in a world less rigid about presentation, this version of Cas would probably consider himself A/B/O nonbinary. Nontrinary? (Dean doesn't care one way or another about the label, though, he just considers himself pretty damned lucky to have him. ;) )
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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